Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope Book 2)

Ann Cleeves is manna from heaven for nosy readers everywhere and Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is a pleasure to watch in action as she blusters onto a crime scene with her brusque line in questioning, scruffy attire and curious ability to make herself comfortable, even when she is an unwilling intruder. This second novel is another opportunity to devour Ann Cleeves unique brand of atmospheric crime fiction, marked out by her portrayals of village life against the rugged backdrop of the windswept and rugged Northumbria coastline. Cleeves’ novels never fail to engage, marked out by subtle characterisation and a cunning that sees her extruding hidden passions, historic resentments and simmering frustrations. Overweight and shambolic, DI Vera Stanhope certainly elicits strong reactions with her attempt at a dithering and out of her depth old woman, managing to send a ripple of fear through not only the guilty party but those reticent to be drawn. A particular joy in Telling Tales was that Vera made four big grand entrances within the first one-hundred-pages with her thick legs, shapeless Crimplene clothes, open toed sandals and blotchy skin. Vera is the very anti-thesis of a feminine and well turned out Detective Inspector. However, watch closely and you will see that very should never be underestimated and is as shrewd as they come. She feels her way into the complexities of a situation and perceptively picks up on hostilities and lies. Reading an Ann Cleeves novel feels like a homage to the good old days when crime fiction was populated by distinctive characters and littered with red herrings and blind alleys with the ensuing cracks providing leverage for a skilful detective to decipher the undercurrents.Ten-years-ago when Emma Winter moved to the village of Elvet, East Yorkshire and her early days were filled by her sole friendship, with the vibrant and ethereal beauty of best friend, fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. Both misfits in their own way, Emma longed for escape to the Old Chalet and Abigail’s glamorous lifestyle with her widowed and charismatic father, Keith. Within six-months of moving to Elvet, Emma’s life was blighted by the discovery of her friends body, strangled to death. The much younger girlfriend of Keith, Jeanie Long, was sentenced to life imprisonment, unable to offer a corroborated alibi and given her fractious relationship with Abigail and Keith asking her to move out of the home she had spent three-months living at. However, ten years later and turned down for parole, Jeanie Long’s suicide prior to a new witness coming forward sees DI Vera Stanhope casting fresh eyes over an investigation that the neighbouring force of Yorkshire originally presided over. It doesn’t take Vera too long to unsettle villagers and enthuse Elvet with her mischievous energy and get to grips with the very ferocity of human emotions and the lengths that it can drive people to.After the murder, best friend Emma went away to university, only to return and live her life as a married mother in the shadow of her overbearing and devout father, parole officer, Robert, and obliging mother, Mary and a marriage to an older man that lacks spark and has left her curiously disengaged with her surroundings. Emma goes through the motions, smiles at the right places and plays the happy wife, but her dreams about the brooding and intense pottery maker who lives opposite, Dan Greenwood, are given more colour when she realises that he was a young sergeant and sidekick to the original investigator, Detective Inspector Caroline Fletcher. Now a civilian, Dan’s past is shrouded in mystery, but the arrival of Emma’s self-contained and studious brother, Christopher, who tells of his long held devoted love of Abigail makes Emma realise that perhaps she wasn’t quite so close to her friend as she believed at the time. As Vera mobilises Jeanie’s father, a man who thought his own daughter guilty, and treats him with humanity and respect, she scours and scrutinises the Elvet grapevine for both scurrilous rumour and truth. If it has substance, Vera eeks it out, from attitudes to Keith Mantel, regarded as lacking scruples in business and known for a string of glamorous young girlfriends, to his importance as a local fundraiser. And what of Emma’s husband, the genial pilot James Bennett and why is Keith Mantel so keen to send Vera chasing after him?Vera is genuine and astute, lacking in airs and graces and is often intrusive and tactless, but she also represents a brand of detective that the reader can identify with. The more readers learn of Vera is seems that behind her indomitable front, she too, has her own disappointments and grasp on human emotions. DI Stanhope may be confident and very proud but crucially she also recognises her own fallibility, and berates herself for missing the obvious (although it is never quite so obvious to her readers as to Vera). Despite looking on DS Joe Ashworth as an honorary son, she is not blind to his sentimentality and how easily he is fed a sob story.Telling Tales is a magnificent novel, marked out by some clever characterisation and the added hindrance that Vera Stanhope and her sergeant, Joe Ashworth, are operating in the neighbouring district of Yorkshire and hence not welcomed with open arms by their colleagues. Given that the second murder is investigated under the authority of the the Yorkshire force and Vera has a tendency to rub people up the wrong way, DS Joe Ashworth comes in handy as a foil to extract information in their tremendous double act. Critically, the denouement and motive behind both incidents was wholly believable and whereas sometimes in the past I have found the rationale behind the crimes that Ann Cleeves creates a little hard to swallow, I was impressed with the wrap up. Simply wonderful.Review written by Rachel Hall (@hallrachel)

Well written, with a good pace to keep you interested. I enjoyed the story even though I’d watch the television episode. I didn’t expect it to be so different from the TV version … however this seemed not to matter at all .

Loved the plot and the atmosphere that is created

This book was slightly more "involved" with its very different characters: it really kept the reader guessing. A detective story different to most and a very enjoyable read.

I o always enjoy Vera books

It seemed a bit slow to start with, but once the connection was made to the characters , it was hard to put down

To read

**SPOILER ALERT**I liked the characters. It was an interesting approach that Vera was a very peripheral figure early on in the story. Despite my reservation below, I enjoyed the story, which is set in a small community. Plenty of red herrings to lead the reader astray.The story revolves around a wrongful conviction for a murder that happened 10 years before this story. We are not told what the basis for the conviction was other than the convicted person not being able to prove she was in London on the day of the murder and that she and the murder victim disliked each other. That is surely not sufficient basis for a murder conviction. There doesn't seem to have been any forensic evidence.